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Another important maker not in the same mass production league as some of the one we'll
be talking about before was Florence Kroeber. When some people see his name originally,
initially, they think oh, there was a woman clock maker but he was a German immigrant
named Florence Kroeber, he came here in the middle of the eighteen hundreds and began
working with clocks. He teamed up with a fellow named Nicholas Muller, who was a maker of
metal clock cases, he was good at casting metal and copying intricate designs from other
clocks and making figural clocks and metal casting that were impressive clocks. Kroeber
ended up marrying Muller's daughter and even though they didn't stay in business together
long they were friends and colleague throughout the rest of the time. Kroeber clocks are particularly
desirable and collectible, partly because there's fewer of them, partly because the
quality is more interesting. He never actually made whole clocks, he bought movements from
the Connecticut manufacturers but he had very interesting designs. This way perhaps, the
most interesting, this is in the style of an oil derrick, this is a rare clock so you
probably won't find this again at a flea market, you'd have to pay a lot if one came up, but
not only is this interesting looking, but this has what's called a rotary, or a conical
pendulum. So instead of the pendulum swinging back and forth and ticking, it actually, that
ball just swings in a small circle and the key to this, the advertising punch for this
was that it was noiseless. So this is sometimes called a noiseless clock for that reason.
But if you see Kroeber clocks around, you should be interested in them.